Two thousand eighteen years ago, maybe give or take a few, something incredible happened. All the conditions were just right for God to do something incredible. God became man. He became one of us. He was no longer content to remain on the sidelines and watch us fall into sin, so he entered into history and showed us not only his love but also what each of us is capable of being. We celebrate this event every Christmas, bringing it back into our minds and hearts, and truly entering into the event of God becoming one of us.
We humans, though, we are a “stiff-necked people” in the words of Moses. We don’t like someone coming to tell us that we’re wrong. So we rejected God’s incredible attempt to show us his love, and we demanded for Jesus to be crucified, because we didn’t understand who he was. We relived this event 53 days ago, on Good Friday.
God was not content to let that be the end of things. Even though we demanded his death, he still loved us. He showed us that death was not the end for us, and that we are called to so much more. 50 days ago we relived this Resurrection, when Jesus rose from the dead. After Easter, Jesus spent 40 additional days with his apostles and his disciples, teaching them and living with them. (40 is a really important Bible number, but I won’t get into that right now.) At the end of that time, 10 days ago… ish…, Jesus ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. Jesus left his mission to his apostles and his disciples: he left it to us. At his Ascension, Jesus sent us all out to spread the Good News and to baptize all the nations, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But he didn’t leave us empty-handed. That’s not good enough for God, because today we celebrate another incredible gift God has given to humanity: the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son now lives within each one of us. Each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a temple of God. There is no need for a temple in Jerusalem, as the Jews once thought, because God lives within each of us! God lives within us, because he loves us so much that he cannot stand being separated from us! The Holy Spirit isn’t sitting in the tongues of fire above the heads of the people at Pentecost, the Spirit is inside of them. The tongues of fire come from the person being on fire with faith and love for God!
This same Holy Spirit lives in each one of us. He calls us to our ultimate goal: eternal joy with God in Heaven. He helps us achieve this goal of holiness by giving us many gifts. One gift is the gift of vocation. A vocation to married life, religious or vowed single life, or to the priesthood, teaches us how best to use the gifts that God gives us. The Bible tells us about some pretty fantastic gifts: prophesy, speaking in tongues, etc. The Holy Spirit continues to give us gifts today. Though they might seem boring, they are no less amazing: the gift of fortitude to a father defending his family, especially his daughters, from various ills in our society; the gift of patience to a mother of many children who always want attention; the gift of teaching to all who instruct our children in schools; the gift of wisdom to our grandparents. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Prayer can help us recognize these gifts if we are struggling to see them, and recognizing our gifts is crucial. When we recognize the gifts that God has given us, not only can we use them more effectively, but we are also reminded of God’s great love for us. By recognizing our gifts, we begin to recognize how generous God has been with each of us.
Prayer helps us to see all these gifts:
- That God took on human nature, showing us the true dignity of our humanity.
- That God died for us, destroying sin.
- That God rose from death to show us the way to eternal life.
- That God entrusts us with the mission: to spread the Good News to all the world.
- That God continues to come and dwell inside each one of us.
That’s not even all of the gifts God has given us. God also gave us the life we live, the air we breath, the family we love, all of “our” possessions, the friends we’ve made, the jobs we work, and everything else. God made all of them, and he gave them to us. They are all gifts from God.
Once you and I recognize all these gifts God has given, only question remains: one question, which each of us must answer individually. Whether we want to or not, we must answer it, because our lives are how we answer. Once I recognize the gifts God has given to me, the question every one of us here must ask, what you must ask, what I must ask, what we must ask ourselves every day is this:
How will I respond to the gifts that God has given to me?
Note: this was written for May 20, 2018; however, I didn’t get it posted until June 3, 2018. I put the date for when the homily was given on the post, not the actual post date.
Today’s Readings
May 20, 2018
Pentecost Sunday
Various readings were possible for Pentecost Sunday. They are listed here.